My friend, Adam Walker-Cleaveland, has once again been thwarted in his attempt to be ordained as a “minister of word and sacrament” in the Presbyterian Church (USA). First it was because his presbytery in Idaho objected that he asked his best friend, who happens to be gay, to preach at his ordination service. Now it’s because his new presbytery in California says that his M.Div. degree from Princeton Theological Seminary — a PC(USA) seminary!!! — isn’t good enough.

Few things piss me off as much as the sinful bureaucratic systems of denominational Christianity. When rules and regulations trump common sense, then the shark has officially been jumped.

But what gets to me even more is that bright, competent, and pastorally experienced persons like Adam continue to submit themselves to these sinful systems. They assure me that it’s not for the health insurance or the pension. They do it cuz they feel “called.” And if I hear another person tell me that they’re sticking with their abusive denomination because, “They’re my tribe,” I’m gonna go postal.

So, it’s time for us to do something. It’s time for us, the body of Christ, to ordain Adam. To that end, I’ve started a petition, beseeching Adam to quit the PC(USA) ordination circus and to accept our ordination of him.

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That’s the question that I tweeted yesterday. And then last night, before her talk, I introduced her by reading the tweets that came in. A couple people have asked me to post them, so here they are:

As much as she travels at her age, she is the Energizer Bunny of the Great Emergence!!!!

I’d suggest that you introduce her as a Christian who truly lives out the teachings of Jesus in her interpersonal relationships as well as a scholar on the cutting edge of 21st century Emergent Christianity.

She is someone who embodies the dictum of James 2:1-5 treating equally all those whom she meets as children of God.

Phyllis reminds me of the oracle on the matrix.

As the world’s smartest granma. Although that might get you slugged.

Introduce her as the Stealth Bad Girl of the Episcopal church or this decades “NIXON in China”

I once heard her introduced, by a male pastor, as “the kind of woman I’ve always wanted to be.”

Phyllis Tickle, the Grand Dame of Emergence Christianity

As the smartest women around.

“Phyllis Tickle, the new National Coordinatrix of Emergent Village”

“Phyllis Tickle, the Oracle of Emergence”

“ladies & gents, the woman who introduced us to the phrase, ‘God is both the shit and the fan.’”

How about something like: “Every 500 years a monumental phenomenon occurs in the genetics of females…”?

Please tell them that she is responsible for a book of children’s prayers that i read every day with my 2 year old daughter, and I don’t know words powerful enough to express my gratitude.

Phyllis Tickle, the brilliant, badass Grandmother that you always wished you had.

I dream of some day being as smart as Phyllis. And as beautiful. And as prayerful. And as good. I’m not hopeful.

See what I had to do there? Because if you, like me, read all of your blogs in an RSS reader, then you only see the headline and the first two lines of text on this blog. And, if you’re like me, you very rarely click on the headline to read the entire post.

Here at Bnet, only Scot McKnight has his entire feed syndicated. The rest of us get only the first two lines. The reason, as you might guess, is that Bnet wants you to come to my actual blog so that your eyeballs see the advertisements on the site (but, again, if you’re like me, you’ve got an adblocker installed in Firefox and just see black spaces where the ads are supposed to be.

I’ve advocated a middle ground to Bnet — that they’d syndicate everything before the jump…